extended her hand. “You’re a Hood, too.”
“Hugh Hood. Nice to meet you. It’ll be expensive. About ten thousand dollars. You can do them for less, but you get less. The bars will blend with your current windows. The doors are pricier, but you want them to match your current motif. You don’t have a homeowners’ association, per se, but you don’t want to stick out like Fort Knox and upset your neighbors by making upgrades they don’t agree with. I’d say do the windows, doors and alarm first. Then do the bushes. The neighbors will think you got new windows. The doors will surprise them, but you need them.”
“Can I keep my bushes, but trim them back?”
“Let’s see,” Hugh said.
Hugh and Kim walked outside, with Zach trailing. Hugh nodded. “You can. But we need to get that done today.”
“What’s the rush?”
“We’ve discovered a couple people we want you to take a look at.”
“That’s good.” Kim turned to look at Zach, whose attention was on the sky.
“Come inside,” he said. “That helicopter has flown by three times. I don’t like it.”
Kim did as she was told, flustered and unnerved by the seriousness of the Hood team.
Chapter 4
Kim paced her bedroom on the early Tuesday morning, swallowing Zach’s words. I always get my man or woman. Did he really? Who was he? All the super heroes wrapped into one incredibly fit body?
Twenty-four hours had passed and nothing had happened. What if nothing happened at all? What if the attempts to kill her stopped altogether? Would he think she’d made things up despite their conversation yesterday? No. Nobody in their right mind would call her a liar. He’d seen the proof. He’d found it himself.
What was he doing now? Walking to the window, Kim parted the soft silk curtains and spotted Zach patrolling the west end of her property as he’d done all night long, looking like some crazed black ninja. The other Hoods had vanished last night as quickly as they’d appeared. Kim wanted to giggle, but the practical side of her recognized that Zach was suffering through the intense September Georgia heat for her benefit.
She’d had conflicting thoughts on hiring Hood Investigations in the first place. But who else would do what he was doing? At the moment, she had the note and the attack at the ice cream store, but she suspected the police chief would make light of those things. Zach had found the windows in the keeping room. A good lawyer could argue that she’d arranged that also. In a business where credibility was everything, hers could be on the line. Why did Zach believe her?
She’d given him twenty thousand reasons to believe her and to stay on her case. But this was about more than money. Hood Investigations as a corporation was extremely solvent, so in the scheme of things, twenty thousand dollars was of little consequence. Zachary Hood believed her.
Somewhat relieved, Kim turned away from the window when the glass behind her exploded. Instinct took her to the floor as glass showered around her, splintering into her hair. She crawled under her four-poster bed, scared.
For ten agonizing minutes she waited, wishing she’d followed the plan she and Zach had discussed. If anything happened, she was to get into the laundry room, bury herself beneath the dirty clothes and wait for him there. She debated crawling down the hall to the room now, but her hands were rooted to the wooden floor, and she couldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t obey.
Feet thundered on the stairs leading to her bedroom, and she wished she had more than the mace she’d hidden under the bed to defend herself. Reaching for it, Kim held her breath, knowing she’d be found, hoping her captor would be Zach, and not the person who wanted her dead.
Her two-hundred-pound bed frame began to rise off two of its four-poster legs. “Come out from under there.”
“The laundry room is clear,” she heard a man say as she crawled from beneath the bed.
Kim looked up and saw a different version of Zach standing above her. A paw of a hand reached down and pulled her up with no effort. “The threat has been neutralized. What’s that?” he asked, referring to the canister in her hand.
“Defense spray. I keep it under the bed.” The inept spray against his 9 mm looked ridiculous, but she didn’t let it show on her face.
Another man, an identical twin to Ben Hood—Zach’s brother—came into the room, looked at the canister, then at her. He looked a little apprehensive. “You have to have great aim with that, or it’s no good. Rob Hood,” he stated by way of introduction. “Ma’am. You were hit. Sit down.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Two seconds passed, and she realized by his expression that he wouldn’t lie to her. “Where?”
Ben and Rob never touched her, but they crowded her with their bodies until she backed into the bed. She had no choice but to sit down. Though she wasn’t easily intimidated, they did a good job of making her feel small.
“Where am I hurt?” Looking down, she could see no injury.
The air seemed sucked dry when Zach entered the room. He practically tossed his brothers aside, getting to the bed. “Your cheek,” he exhaled. He grabbed her hand before it could reach her face. “Don’t touch it! Dammit, Ben, go in the bathroom and get the cotton balls and antiseptic. Rob, get outside with the cops. Hugh’s out there already.”
Zach cursed some more, his hands moving down her shoulders to her elbows. He looked under her arm, and feeling self-conscious at his lack of decency, she yanked her arm down.
“You hurt anywhere else?” he asked, not knowing why she’d reacted so abruptly. In some things men were so dense. She didn’t want him looking at her armpit.
“No. I didn’t know I was hit. I don’t feel anything. It must have just grazed me. I—I do recall that, but everything was going so fast, honestly, I had no idea—”
His brother returned with the first aid kit, and they went to work in silence. Ben, with slow, careful hands, picking glass from her hair, and Zach dabbing and blowing lightly to soften the sting on her injured cheek where the bullet had grazed her.
Four focused, concerned eyes were studying her, and she couldn’t help but become even more self-conscious. “I’m not accustomed to this much attention. I’m fine. Fellas, please.” Kim squirmed off the bed, but Ben sat her down again.
“Be still. I’m not finished. Zach, we should call Xan. I don’t know how to get the rest of this glass out of her hair.”
“Come on, Ben. Pick it out a piece at a time. I’ll do it.”
“No, man. I got it.”
They were so patient with each other, Kim thought, her heart tender for what she’d missed out on as a child.
“Who’s Xan?” Kim wanted to know.
“Our sister. She’s a doctor,” Zach answered. “I don’t want anyone to know the judge has been hurt.”
“She’s done hair before,” Ben said in his own defense. “I just don’t want to hurt her.”
“Just take your time, B,” Zach said. “You’re getting it out, but you should probably call anyway.”
“Good idea,” Ben said. “Let me see what she’s doing.”
“How’d I get shot?” Kim reached for her cheek, but Zach caught her hand and gently guided it down to her lap. He sectioned her hair and pulled fragments of glass from the strands.
“Your neighbor next door was shooting at the squirrels that were eating from his bird feeder, and he misfired when a squirrel ran at him.”
“Paul shot me?” Incredulous, Kim ran to the window, but Zach didn’t allow her to look out. “I