Murmur (Pierce Securities Book 5) Read online

  Copyright 2016 by Anne Conley

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead are purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover model: David Wills

  Cover photography: Eric Battershell

  Cover design: Samantha Holt with LLaLS Cover Art

  Editor: Tiffany Fox; Beyond Def

  Formatter: E-Book Builders

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  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-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  About Anne

  Contact Anne

  Anne's Bookshelf

  For the Reader

  Pierce Securities:

  Craze

  Wire

  Click

  Grab

  Book B!thces

  Power of Love

  Master of Love

  Hunt for Love

  Fostering Love

  Will to Love

  Love’s Ward

  Stories of Serendipity:

  Neighborly Complications

  Chef’s Delight

  Dream On

  Hot Mess

  Falling for Him

  Gambling on Love

  My Mistake

  Wrecked

  Saving Charlie

  Four Winds:

  Falling for Heaven

  Falling for Grace

  Falling for Hope

  Falling for Faith

  Falling for Cyn

  Falling for Eternity (Complete Four Winds Box Set)

  Stand Alones:

  Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men

  The Fixer Upper

  First off, my husband is everything to me. He’s provided me with unparalleled support throughout my journey and has done things NO OTHER HUSBAND DOES. And I love him for that. My mom, too, even though she doesn’t read my books, because I “don’t need all that sex,” is still incredibly supportive. She’s finally stopped calling them trashy romances.

  My “tribe” is amazing. My personal assistant, Colleen— with a smile and a beer, she does all the stuff that stresses me out. My editor, Tiffany, has talked me off so many ledges, it’s not even funny. My interior formatter and designer, Deena Rae, has become a dear friend of mine, fondly referring to me as boozy booze hound, but I know she will do anything for me (and has). My cover designer for this series, Samantha, is amazing and works with these horrible-looking pictures I send her and makes them gorgeous. Just kidding. Eric Battershell takes some fantastic shots, and this one of David Wills takes the freaking cake. Am I right?

  My beta readers are phenomenal, as are my Launch Team and Street Team. Without this group of people, I would just be a weird woman who sits in my guest room playing with fictional people all day long. Without them giving me encouragement, readers would never see these stories.

  Thanks to everyone who has a place in this industry: bloggers, other authors, and most of all, readers.

  To anybody who wears masks..

  Y’all don't need to hide.

  Valerie was ladling a bowl of soup her housekeeper had left when she heard the unmistakable series of clicks to the door to the wing of the cavernous house her parents had chosen for her to feel safe in. The wing where she lived. Alone.

  Spoon poised over her bowl, Valerie’s body reacted. Listening carefully to the heavy thud of footsteps, her blood turned to ice in her veins. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear her pulse rush in her ears. As the fear spread through her body, her limbs grew heavy. Valerie was frozen.

  “Sweetheart? I’m home!” a man’s voice called to her. It was affable, charming even, but it was a stranger to her.

  Tiny chunks of carrots and chicken stock shook over her bowl as her hand trembled. Hearing footsteps walk down the hall toward the kitchen, she knew she had to turn around. Valerie didn’t want her back to the doorway when he came in, whoever he was. Slowly, she managed to force her feet to move, one at a time. Turn one, then the other. You can do this. You have to do this. Make yourself do this.

  Valerie didn’t want to look. She wanted to close her eyes and be someplace different, but she’d been trying to do that for three years, and it never worked. Teleportation just wasn’t possible.

  When her body finally faced the door, Valerie tried to take a deep breath, but she couldn’t. Air didn’t work for her anymore. Each inhale was a painful stab in her chest. Then, the man made it to the kitchen.

  He was taller than her five-foot-ten-inch frame but powerfully built, with a barrel chest and slender hips, dressed all in black, complete with a black ski mask.

  The ski mask was what did it. Valerie found her voice and screamed.

  “Shhhh, sweetheart.” The man rushed over to her and pulled her unwilling body into his arms. “Don’t scream, sweetheart. The mask is to make you feel better.” His voice was soothing, chillingly so, but his hands held her tightly, letting her know he was stronger than she was.

  She was in a helpless situation.

  Trapped in her own home by a condition even she didn’t understand, Valerie couldn’t run from him. He must have known that. He was using it to his advantage, knowing she couldn’t get away from him.

  “That smells delicious, Valerie. I’m starved.” His use of her name and the fact he was even here told her he knew about her. Whoever this was knew she never left her home. “You look beautiful today. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

  He was still holding her, trapped in his arms, looking down at her with watery brown eyes, studying her mask. Valerie wore a mask because she couldn’t stand to look at herself, much less anybody else. Not that many people saw her; she never left her home. The masks were a throwback she’d outgrown since childhood, but after the incident, she’d turned to them and found a measure of comfort in them. She could pretend she was still beautiful because the masks were. They afforded her a sense of safety in the life she couldn’t really control.

  But it wasn’t helping her now.

  “I like the glitter. It matches your eyes.” He smiled down at her, but it didn’t relax Valerie. If anything, she stiffened in his arms further. Her muscles hurt; she was so stiff. Her mind went back to childhood games. Anything to get her away from this man—this stranger who was in her home, acting like they knew each other.

  Not getting a response, the man released her, shrugging. “I know this seems strange, Valerie, but I think you’ll
eventually get used to the situation.” He was reaching into the cabinet with the bowls, getting himself one. “I’ve been watching you. I know what you like. I can make you happy.” Ladling soup into his bowl, he continued, as if none of this was strange in the least. The man turned to her and smiled, the effect chilling behind the ski mask. “You’ll see. Come on. Let’s eat.”

  Leading the way to the kitchen table, he stopped and got spoons, knowing exactly which drawer she kept them in. “Sit. I’ll grab us a glass of wine.” He bent down and reached for a bottle from her wine cooler, then stretched to grab the glasses. He wore black leather gloves. Sinister looking implements. He wasn’t leaving fingerprints. No evidence.

  With him distracted, Valerie disconnected her brain from her body and made a break for it.

  She rushed down the hallway to the door to her wing, her sanctuary. Valerie occasionally went into the other part of the house, but she didn’t really have much need to. When she got to the door, her trembling fingers struggled to twist the deadbolt, but she finally managed. She darted down the short hallway to the main part of the house, but as she ran through the main living room—around the credenza, banging her knee on the heavy, teak coffee table—her feet got heavier as she could see the massive front door in her sights.

  It was the door to freedom. The door out of this prison. But it was also her only barrier to the outside world. The world she hadn’t seen in three years.

  The man was coming down the hallway toward her, though. She could hear his heavy footsteps as they plodded her way over the soft carpeting.

  She reached the door and fumbled, sheer terror making everything more difficult than it needed to be. Not hearing anything behind her, Valerie took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down and undo the heavy locks on the door. Her mother hated all the locks, said they messed with the integrity of the design of the door, but she needed them.

  The man must be watching her. Valerie didn’t dare look back at him. She could hear his breathing, but it was drowned out by her own heartbeat as she opened the door and felt the warm, night air on her skin.

  Valerie knew she couldn’t think too much about what she was doing or she’d never make it. Launching herself out the door was like catapulting an elephant. Her body was heavy with sweat and fear, but she had to make it outside and down the driveway to the road. Words couldn’t express how daunting that task was. She didn’t have a car. The driveway was a quarter mile long.

  And outside.

  The concrete on her bare feet was foreign to her, and hurt, but she forced herself along, each step harder and harder to take the further away from her house she got. But his footsteps were louder, and she knew he followed her.

  The man in the black ski mask. With the gloves.

  The man who had just let himself inside her home like he owned the place.

  Her vision darkened at the edges, blackness creeping in on what was left of the daylight. Valerie had to make it. She had to get past this. She had to do better.

  Why hadn’t she done what her therapist had taught her about outside? Because she thought she’d always be safe in her home.

  Bile rose in her throat, and Valerie gulped deep breaths, desperate for air, but she couldn’t get any. The hot, night air singed her throat, making her mouth dry, even with the bile rising. Her fingertips tingled, along with her scalp, the tingles spreading across her skin like wildfire.

  Valerie realized she had stopped, so she forced her feet to move forward over the painful concrete, through the thick air. She knew she was about to faint but couldn’t let it happen. She forced oxygen into her lungs.

  Falling to her knees, Valerie retched, emptying the contents of her stomach into the grass lining the walkway. Some part of her realized how close to the house she still was. And how far she had left to go.

  Enormous, black wing-tips filled her vision. Some part of her acknowledged they weren’t expensive shoes, and another part acknowledged it didn’t matter one whit.

  Then, steely arms lifted her against a barrel chest, and the scent of cheap cologne filled her senses.

  “I’ve got you, sweetheart. That was a brave thing you just did, and I’m proud of you. But we need to get some food inside you. Let’s go eat before we watch some TV and go to bed, ‘kay?”

  Hearing the man talk about her bed with such familiarity was the catalyst. Valerie allowed the tingling blackness to take over, preferring that to whatever this man had in store for her.

  Trying to get a feel for the new-hires at Pierce Securities, Quinten observed Deena Rae and Andrew, trying to gauge how they were going to fit in. Pierce Securities had a vibe, and he was protective of the routine they’d had, if not a bit worried for what the team would fall into. He still couldn’t tell how these new-hires would work out, even as he studied them in the gym at the office. Quinten was preparing for his last fight of his career, ready to retire a year ago. He’d installed a punching bag in the corner, invading Miriam’s yoga space, but she wasn’t here yet, so he’d sort of taken it over for the morning.

  Andrew was spotting Deena Rae on the bench press, staring at her chest. She was pressing an impressive amount of weight for a woman her size—tall and thin—until she snapped at him.

  “Are you staring at my tits?” Andrew’s eyes snapped to the ceiling innocently, not that he could safely spot her from there.

  “Um… Nope.”

  Deena Rae grumbled, and Evan chuckled from the pull-up bar before dropping to the floor and grabbing a towel. He smirked at Quinten, tossing him a wink. Apparently, Evan thought they would bring a little levity to the office. With Simon’s attitude lately, they certainly needed some.

  With every man down—falling in love, that is—Simon had gotten more and more surly. It was his rule they weren’t to have romantic relationships with clients, and lo and behold, four of them had fallen victim to Cupid’s arrow.

  Except Quinten. Probably more than the others, he longed to have a good woman by his side, like his dad had. He’d looked for it in other women he’d been around, had even tried some of the online dating sites, but they were all stupid. He wasn’t looking for a hookup. Those were everywhere. He could have his pick of the gym bunnies he saw at his fights, but they didn’t turn his head. There was no spark there, either.

  It pissed Simon off to have his edicts so blatantly ignored. Quinten knew this first-hand. Having grown up with Simon for a big, bossy brother, Quinten was well aware how much it pissed him off when others thought they knew better than him.

  But the security firm was doing well enough they’d had to hire two new people, and Hollerman was going to join the team as soon as he left the police force in a few weeks.

  Things were looking up, despite Simon’s sour attitude. In fact, Quinten had just gotten off a bodyguard detail in some small town called Mystic, up in East Texas, as a favor to Miriam’s brother. Some weird shit had happened there, and he was ready for a normal case. But the fact they could afford to do jobs as favors spoke volumes to their current success. Quinten knew his brother was breathing a little easier as far as the job stress went.

  “You ready for your fight?” Simon asked Quinton from the free weights, where he was doing goblet squats with a giant dumbbell in his fists. Quinten knew his brother was about to move on to his pelvic barbell thrusts and hated having conversations with him while Simon was thrusting his hips into the air. It was a great thigh workout, but Quinten wasn’t down to watch his brother do it, so he pivoted around to beat some on the other side of the bag.

  “As ready as I can be. I’m sort of over all this, anyway.”

  “Yeah, man. I know you are.” Simon understood why he’d started fighting, since he had the same damn parents. Quinten loved his mom and dad, and missed them fiercely since they’d died, but when he was in college—doing exactly what they’d wanted—his fighting was a silent “fuck you” to the parents who’d tried to dictate his every move.

  “I’m totally gonna be there. I watched you b
efore I knew you. Now that I work with the fucking Haymaker, man, it’s going to be epic,” Andrew huffed from the treadmill, where he’d moved after Deena Rae had given him a disgusted look.

  “We’re all going,” Zack said from behind Deena Rae, where he’d started spotting her after Andrew had run. No one really understood exactly how much he could actually see. Legally blind, he could see shadows and colors but nothing definite. He’d been a friend for a while, even though Quinten had been pissed at him forever because he wouldn’t stop talking shit about his sister, Bonnie. Back in high school, he’d caught him doing stuff with his baby sister and that caused the chink in their friendship, but Zack wouldn’t let shit go so the chink could mend.

  Quinten shrugged, pummeling the bag with a volley of kicks, trying to get the idea of Zack and Bonnie out of his head. He really wanted to like Zack like he’d used to. Dude was a likable guy, and Quinten knew him better than anybody.

  “You think I can get Bonnie to go as my date? Maybe she can whisper sweet play-by-plays in my ear,” Zack grinned. That was why Quinten was constantly pissed at the guy. He just wouldn’t let it go. Zack used women like toilet paper: fucking them, then shitting all over them and flushing them down the proverbial toilet. Quinten didn’t want a guy like that for his sister.

  But Simon had put Zack on payroll, so there wasn’t anything he could do about it at this point. Except ignore him.

  “Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I need to watch a good fight, man.” Jordan was on the newish leg machine. He didn’t like doing squats and had found the machine at a garage sale to put into the cramped gym space at the office. The thing about used workout equipment, most of it was like new.

  Simon was sprawled near the free weights, barbell across his pelvis, lifting with his thighs. “I want you to be careful. I nailed Grynderr eight years ago for drug trafficking. I will always think the guy dealt in girls, too, but we couldn’t pin anything on him. His name’s Tommy Pell, and the dude’s bad fucking news.”