Alistair (Golden Streak Series)

Alistair

Golden Streak Series

Book 2

By

Kathi S. Barton

World Castle Publishing, LLC

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright
© Kathi S. Barton 2013

ISBN:
9781939865717

First
Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC July 22, 2013

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover:
Karen Fuller

Photos:
Shutterstock

Editor:
Eric R. Johnston

Chapter 1

Alistair knew that whatever happened
with this client he was going to go on a long vacation and not take his cell
phone with him. This was the stupidest person he’d ever taken on. He stood up
when the judge entered the room, and he tried to jerk his client up. He really
needed this like he did a hole in his head.

“Your client is asleep, Alistair. Have
you become so boring that you have to drag them from their beds to give
yourself something to do?” The judge, Thomas Gilbert, a good friend, laughed. “You
can still take my place, if you want.”

“No thanks. I think Ryland would murder
me in my bed.” He looked down at the man snoring loudly beside him. “You think
we can just get this finished while he’s out? It might go a little bit easier
if I don’t have to explain everything twice to him.”

Thomas nodded and picked up the file the
bailiff had handed him. He looked it over quickly, then asked Alistair what was
the game plan. His client was in for drunk driving on a sidewalk and through a
mall. It was pretty much open and shut, but the guy had called in a favor from
Brock and as much as Brock had hated to ask, Alistair was representing the man.

“I don’t suppose we could put him in
jail for thirty and forget about him.” Thomas laughed as did the bailiff at his
request. “Fine and time served?”

“All right, but he’s gonna have to come
help with the cleanup, too. Nearly took out the taco place with his drunken
behavior, and you know how much I love those suckers.” The gavel came down hard,
but the man didn’t stir. It wasn’t until he was being lifted by the two police
officers that he woke enough to ask what was going on.

Alistair didn’t even bother trying to
explain even as the guy was screaming at him to explain what the fuck was happening.
As Alistair closed up his brief case, he tossed his coat over his arm and
headed out. Plans for some time off were already forming in his head as he
moved toward the back of the courtroom and out to what he hoped was freedom. He
nodded to the officer who opened the door for him and froze in place as the
officer dropped to the floor with a bullet in his head.

The screaming made him duck behind the
door he’d nearly stepped out from behind. Thomas was shouting something from
behind him, but Alistair couldn’t hear him over the din in the hall. He could
hear shots being fired and moved further back from the door as someone fired
one off near the room he was in. The man who entered looked at him and pointed
the gun right at his head.

“Get the fuck up.” Alistair nodded and
stood, keeping his hands up. “Come here. You’re going to make a nice shield for
me when I get out of here. Things didn’t go like I planned them and now…well….”

Alistair didn’t argue but did as he was told.
He felt his brother touch his mind and told him to wait because he was in
danger.

“
What the fuck do you mean wait? I
can feel your terror now. Something has happened and either you tell me now or I’m
coming down there now.”
Alistair was being held close to the man behind him
and begged Ryland to stay away.

“You’ll only get yourself killed, and
your wife will kill me if you do.”
He took a deep breath as they moved in
the hall and Alistair got his first look around.
“I’m being held with a gun
to my head to be, as he put it, a shield. Call for help but stay away, please.
I can see seven bodies right in front of me and I don’t want to see you among
them. Please, Ryland, listen to me for once.”

“All right, I won’t come in the court
house but I’m fucking coming to you. I’m on the phone with the police now, and
they want to know which floor you’re on and if you know who’s holding you.”
He could feel
his brother’s fear.

“I don’t fucking know him. We’ve not had
a chance to exchange email addresses yet, but as soon as we do, I’ll make sure
you’re the first to know. Christ, is everyone stupid today?”
Ryland laughed,
which made Alistair feel less tense as well
. “I don’t know him. He’s about
six-four, two hundred and fifty pounds, tats over his face and neck. I think
one of them is a tear drop.”

 
“All right, I’ve told them. They
said to hang tight. Whatever the fuck that means.”
Alistair didn’t know
either but planned on hanging onto his life if possible.
“Don’t get yourself
killed, all right?”

Alistair told him he’d try not to. The
cop that stepped in front of them told them to halt. And when his captor
laughed, Alistair didn’t have to look to see that he was going to kill him. The
gun went off so close to his ear that he felt his ear drum pound. The young cop
dropped over as if his feet were taken from under him. Alistair told Ryland the
name that he’d seen on his name badge.

The man holding him stopped moving
forward and Alistair knew that he was going to be shot next. He could hear the
cops coming in and barking orders for everyone to lie down. This was not going
to end well, and he told his brother that. He opened his eyes only just
realizing that he’d closed them when the man behind him spoke. There was a
lovely woman standing in front of them. And she looked as terrified as Alistair
felt.

“You want I should shoot you?” The woman
shook her head and held up her hands. “Then you best be getting out of my way.
I got what I came for and you’re going to be another bullet point if you don’t
get the fuck back.”

“You came for him?” Confused, Alistair
looked around and realized she was talking about him. “I hope the fuck he’s
worth it. Is he your lover or something?”

“No, he ain’t my lover. What the fuck is
wrong with you?” He pointed the gun at her and tightened his grip around
Alistair’s throat. “I said to get the fuck back. I got no real cause to kill
you, but that don’t mean I won’t if you push me.”

“Okay. Okay. I just wanted to….” She
looked around, then back at them as she took a step forward. “You do know that
you’re not going to get out of here alive, right? That man you have in front of
you won’t offer you much protection once the guys outside shoot him up a bit.”

Alistair wanted to snarl at her, but he
couldn’t talk. “What the fuck do you care for, anyway? He your lover or
something? He just don’t look like your type. You should be with a more manly
man. Like me.”

“Christ, no. I mean no, he’s not my
lover, either. He’s not my type. I like my men a little less legal. No, I was
asking because you really seem like a man that has a plan and I was wondering
if I could tag along when you leave. I’m here for…robbery, and I don’t want any
jail time, either.” She took another step forward, then a second one. Alistair
didn’t think the man noticed. Just what he needed, he thought, the two of them
holding him as body armor.

“You think to come along with me outta
here? I got me a car waiting. I only came in to kill off the cock sucker that
got me into prison the first time. He ain’t gonna be sending anyone up again.”
The girl nodded and took another step. She was about five feet from them now.

“That’s cool.” The girl nodded and
looked at him. “I don’t suppose you checked him for weapons, did you? I mean I
know there are laws and all, but you never know about these legal asses. They
do think they’re above the law.”

“Shit. Didn’t think of that. He might
have something on him right now.” The guy nodded at her, nearly taking his head
off as he looked at her again. “You come on over here and check him out. Don’t
do anything stupid, because I’ll blow your fucking brains out too. I don’t need
a woman who don’t obey when she should. You mind me and we’ll get out of here
just fine and dandy.”

She nodded as she took the last two
steps between them. Alistair watched her move slowly and felt her hands on his
chest, then run down long his ribs. He felt her breath on his cheek as she
leaned into him, and he wanted to nip at her flesh. She looked up at the man
who was holding him.

“I can’t check his back. You have him
too tight against you for me to look there. You think you could let him go
enough that I can feel down his back? I’m betting he has something there. I
would hate for us to get out the door and he pulls something out and shoots one
of us.”

The man loosened his grip just a little
and her hands slid behind him and along his back, but only for a second. He
felt her jerk suddenly as the man holding him moved. Then the gun went off. Alistair
felt his air rush back into his lungs quickly when he was let go. But it wasn’t
until he fell on the floor that he realized that the woman had tossed him to
the side. She staggered back, and that’s when Alistair noticed the knife in the
chest of his captor. She’d killed him. He looked at the girl as she took
another step back. He started to go to her, not sure what had happened when she
turned to him and he saw the blood.

“He shot you,” he said. She looked at
him and pulled her hand away from her waist. Her hand was covered in blood. As
he moved toward her, she took several more steps back until she hit the wall
behind her.

“Don’t touch me.” He stopped moving toward
her when she leaned back against the wall. “You hurt?”

“No. Let me help you.” He started
forward again and saw the gun. “You won’t shoot me. You just saved me. Let me
help you.”

“I have to go and rest a minute.” He
thought she meant that she had to sit, but when she moved toward the stairs instead,
he started for her again. “You come any closer, I’ll shoot you. I swear to
Christ you can’t be that stupid.”

“I’m not, but you are if you think I’m
going to let you walk out of here.” The door to the front of the courthouse
burst open and he looked toward it. Several men were coming in, all of them
armed and in full gear. He looked back toward the woman. She was gone. He saw
the drops of blood and started for them, but was stopped when he was told to
stand still. Raising his hands over his head, he told them who he was and that
a woman who had helped him had been shot.

“She’s gone that way.” He nodded to the
blood on the floor. Then he was tossed down, and his entire body searched in
seconds. It was as thorough as any exam he’d had at a doctor’s office. Then he
was cuffed. “You have to help her. She saved my life.”

“We’ll get to her in a minute. Right now
we’re going to see who you are. And ask you a few questions. There’s been a
shooting, and there are people dead.”
No shit
.

Alistair tried to remain still as they
searched him again and then they asked him what had happened. He told them
quickly and asked again if they could find the girl. One of the men nodded and
took off toward the stairwell where her blood trail had gone. He was uncuffed
almost immediately, but he wasn’t let go for another hour.

Alistair was escorted from the building
with two others that had apparently passed whatever test the men inside were
conducting. The killer was dead, and he understood that there might be a second
killer, but he would have thought to get everyone out, not set them up like
bowling pins in a long alley. His brothers were there, and he held them off when
they tried to hug him. He explained quickly what had happened and tore off the part
of his shirt that she’d touched and handed it to them.

“You have to find her. She saved my life,
and without her I’d be in the next body bag that comes out.” Each of them took
off in different directions except for Ryland, who said he was staying with
him.

“Mom knows you were in the building. She’s
called me four times. When I told her that I could see you, she said for me to
stay with you until she could see you herself. And Bronwyn is coming down as
well.”

Great. His mom and his pregnant
sister-in-law. He went to the ambulance to be checked out and waited to hear
from one of his brothers. She couldn’t have gotten that far with a bleeding
belly, could she?

An hour later, each of his brothers came
back without any information on the girl. Brock said he had smelled her in the
halls but had lost her in the crowds of people that came and went in there
daily.

“She could be living in the building for
all we know, but she didn’t come out. And there is no sign that she was with
the man, not if what you say is true about her killing him.” Alistair had been
watching the gurney’s as they came out and knew that Brock was right. “I’ll see
what I can find out at the hospital. Sindy is working tonight. Maybe she knows.”

Sindy Wilson was a friend of his family.
And she was a nurse at the hospital. If anyone came in, she’d find them,
because she was just like them—a tiger. Alistair waited his turn to talk to the
police again, this time in a room that had been set up, and watched as his
friend Thomas was brought out. He’d been shot once in the head, too. The police
he’d been asked to speak to were dazed and seemed to be overwhelmed. Alistair
knew just how they felt. He told them everything that had happened, including
how the girl had saved him.

“You think she was with him?” Alistair
frowned at the officer. “She had a knife in a building that strictly says ‘no
weapons.’ Could they have been together is all I’m asking you.”

“I’m pretty sure that a gun is a weapon,
as well, and the stupid prick that held me had one of those pointed right at my
head when she stabbed him in the fucking chest. How do you suppose we should
prosecute him? To the full extent of the law? Have him put in the chair? Oh
wait, he’s already dead. Moron.” He took a deep breath trying to control his
temper and his cat. “Look. He didn’t seem to know her at all. When she appeared
in front of us he seemed just as surprised by it as I was. He even threatened
to kill her if she didn’t get out of the way. She saved my life and I would
very much like it if you found her. As I’ve said several times, she was injured
and is in need of medical attention.”