Chapter 4
Four
Charlie knew it was a risk, but she’d never been afraid of taking a chance…
especially when the stakes were so high.
Raising her clenched fist, she knocked on the door.
She heard the angry thud of each footfall as someone closed in on the door.
When it was ripped open, she had to keep herself from outwardly flinching.
“You are not going to be my other wife,” Bennett growled, and Charlie swallowed a snicker.
“Of course not.” She used his height to her advantage, waltzing under his arm and into the honeymoon suite. “I already have my husband picked out, and I’m sorry to tell you that you weren’t even in the running.”
“Really?” Fifi said, emerging from the bathroom in her pajamas. “Who’s your husband-to-be? And were you really running around the hotel dressed like that?”
“Cranky firefighter Kieran, of course.” Charlie plopped down on the bed and made herself comfortable.
“He’s hot, fun to wind up, and he has a soft spot for small animals…
i.e., the perfect potential husband. What’s wrong with my llama jams?
” Her sleepwear actually covered quite a lot, plus she had on fuzzy socks.
She wasn’t sure what her sister’s objection could be.
“Does Kieran know?” Charlie was glad to see that her brother-in-law’s irritation was quickly shifting to amusement.
“Of course not.” Charlie waved her hand, dismissing the idea that his lack of knowledge could be a problem. “We’re only in the introductory stages. He’ll find out before we’re actually married, though, don’t worry.”
“Was that a dig about our wedding?” Fifi asked, sitting next to Charlie and tugging the covers over her lap.
“Of course not.” Charlie patted her sister’s leg through the bedding. “Maybe your wedding wouldn’t make the cover of Bride Magazine, but you made it work for you, and I’m very happy with the result.” She gave Bennett an approving nod. “Now we have a multi-tool around whenever we need it.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t ask if “tool” was referring to the one he carried or the man himself.
Taking pity on him, and because she really did like Bennett, Charlie assured him that she was being literal. “It’s very handy to have access to your multi-tool.”
“I’ll get you one for Christmas,” he promised.
Although she tried to appear pleased, she must’ve wrinkled her nose, because he gave her a frowning head tilt.
“That’s great and all, but it works a lot better when the tool is connected to a set of burly muscles.
” She gestured at Bennett, who looked pleased, flexing a little while shooting Fifi a sideways glance.
His wife rolled her eyes—although she very obviously checked out her husband’s muscly display—and made a get-on-with-it gesture at Charlie.
“Since you’ve invaded our honeymoon suite again, you must want to talk about something.
Let’s discuss so you can go to your very beautiful, very functional room that—most importantly—isn’t this one. ”
“I do want to talk,” Charlie agreed, “since, you know, someone tried to murder us tonight. Again.”
“We do seem to come off as rather murderable,” Fifi said as Bennett scooted in behind her so that she was leaning against his chest.
“I don’t know.” Charlie grabbed a pillow to squeeze, since she didn’t have a living teddy bear of her own like her sister did. “Apparently, attempted murder is pretty common around here.”
Bennett gave an agreeing grunt.
“There has to be a reason though,” Fifi said. “People don’t barricade us inside coffee shops and burn them down without a good reason.” When Charlie gave her a look, she amended that. “Without a reason.”
“Who’d you annoy the most when you were here before?” Charlie asked. “The militia?”
“Bennett did run down one of their members with a golf cart,” Fifi said thoughtfully. At Bennett’s grunt, she shrugged. “Humiliation makes people—especially men—feel rather murder-y.”
“True.” Charlie was quiet for a few moments while she thought. “Lou could’ve been the intended target too.”
Bennett made a skeptical sound.
“Yeah, B’s right,” Felicity translated her husband’s grunt-speak. “It’s been years since someone attempted to kill Lou. Seems coincidental, especially since someone tries to kill a member of our family…what? Once a week?” Bennett grumbled unhappily, and his wife gave his arm a reassuring pat.
With a nod, Charlie said, “So it sounds like we were the attempted victims, likely by the militia?”
“Could Jane have done it?”
The question startled Charlie—the thought hadn’t crossed her mind.
From Fifi’s expression, it hadn’t crossed hers either.
Charlie wasn’t sure why the suggestion took her by surprise. Jane would definitely toss every single one of her daughters under the bus if it benefited her. There was a flaw to that logic though. “She needs the key.”
Relief flashed across Fifi’s face. “Right. She never would’ve killed us like that if she wanted the key back. Arson scenes are notoriously messy.”
Charlie’s laugh came out of her in a dizzying rush. “Can you imagine her wearing a pencil skirt and stilettos, hair in a French twist, digging through the ash and soot like a bougie Cinderella?”
Fifi’s giggle was real, although with a high-pitched edge, but Bennett’s arms wrapped around her as his expression tightened into rock-hard lines. Charlie realized that, in her imagined scenario, Jane would’ve been digging through their cremated remains, and her laugh ended abruptly.
“So…militia,” she rushed out, trying to change the subject so quickly that she stumbled over it.
Fifi must’ve translated her expression correctly—or she felt the tension in the death grip Bennett had around her—because she glanced up at her husband and then said, “I think we need sleep. We’ll meet up with Lou tomorrow and maybe talk to Chris—Daisy’s husband.
He might’ve heard something around the sheriff department about the Freedom Survivors being all up in their emotions about the golf-cart incident—or the whole jailing-their-buddies thing. ”
Eager to escape the tension in the room, Charlie quickly agreed, relinquishing her pillow and hopping off the bed.
“Sleep tight, you two.” She bit back a joke about surviving until morning, since she was pretty sure Bennett wasn’t in a place where he could appreciate black humor at the moment.
Instead, she gave them both a wave and slipped out into the corridor.
An older couple gave her startled stares as she hurried past them on her way to the stairwell.
Once the fire door banged closed behind her, Charlie muttered, “Maybe Fifi had a point about the llamas.” Still, she smirked as she glanced down at her flannel sleepwear while skipping down the flight of stairs to her floor.
Habit had her pausing before she pushed open the door, peering through the narrow window to check for danger before leaving the stairwell. Her palms flattened against the release bar, but she froze before she shoved it down, peering more closely at the alcove hiding her room door.
Is that a foot?
A boot, to be precise—well, two of them, sticking out of the alcove as if someone was leaning against her door with one foot casually kicked over the other.
It seemed awfully laid back for an assassin in the middle of a job, but she knew better than to assume the boots belonged to a friend.
As relaxed as the person appeared—at least by the position of their boots—they were planning to ambush her at her hotel room door.
Easing the stairwell door open, she slipped into the hall, her eyes on the protruding toes.
She held on to the door as it closed, but she couldn’t prevent the click of the latch engaging.
The boots disappeared as the person straightened, and Charlie winced.
So much for the element of surprise. Her hands slipped over her hip where a pocket should be, and she mentally vowed to sew pockets into all her pajamas and fill each and every one with weapons.
Surely Bennett could be persuaded to give up a few from his personal arsenal.
She briefly considered going back up to bring Fifi and Bennett with her, but now her curiosity was eating at her, and she worried that the person would disappear. Instead, she silenced her phone and sent a quick text to Fifi.
Someone’s standing in front of my room door.
It was only a few seconds before a response came through.
On our way. Who?
Not sure. Can only see boots.
Wait for us in a secure spot.
Charlie held back a snort. That last one must’ve been dictated by Bennett, because Fifi knew her better than that.
Emboldened by the knowledge that help was on the way, she crept closer to the door of her room, keeping tight to the wall, mentally swearing at the hotel’s design that tucked each of its doors into a private alcove, one just big enough to hide the person waiting for her to return.
She made it all the way to the doorway next to hers before the person waiting made a sound. Once she heard that already-familiar growl, she huffed out an exasperated breath.
“Cranky firefighter,” she said as she rushed past the final section of wall and turned in front of her door. “Is that you?”
It was indeed Kieran Byrne, still smudgy and rumpled from the smoke and gear. To Charlie’s annoyance, it was a good look for him.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Before he could answer, she held up her phone. “Hang on.” After she typed out an It’s just Kieran text to her sister, she looked back at his scowling face. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Go ahead with what?”
“Explain why your boots are acting all menacing.” When his eyebrows crashed together in apparent confusion, Charlie realized that hadn’t made much sense to someone who hadn’t been inside her head with her for the last few minutes.
She revised her question to something a little more universally understood. “Why are you here?”