Drawing The Line

CHAPTER ONE

Having spent half her life
in one restaurant or another, Serenity Gallagher had seen just about everything a professional kitchen had to offer.

Except for a
body on the floor. That was definitely new.

“
Oh my God! Colin!” Serenity’s heart smacked a sickening rhythm against her ribs at the sight of her day cook sprawled over the dark gray kitchen tiles. Fluorescent light glared over the prep space, the brightness a harsh contrast to the pre-dawn shadows tucked over the rest of the diner. A shock of crimson bloomed in an angry stain over the chest and shoulder of Colin’s T-shirt, his normally olive complexion shockingly pale.

Serenity’s
keys hit the floor with a sharp metallic jangle. She jammed a shaking hand into her coat pocket, grabbing wildly for her cell phone, even as she knelt to press her other hand against his body.

He didn’t move.

“Hang on! I’m calling for help.”
No, no,
no
, this couldn’t be happening. She’d known Colin for four years. They were friends. She’d just gone to his wedding six months ago, dammit! He couldn’t be hurt. Oh God, he couldn’t be dead.

Not if
she had anything to say about it.

Serenity forced
a breath down her panic-knotted throat as she dialed 911 and punched the speakerphone icon on the screen. Pain bolted up her legs as she dropped to her knees next to Colin’s laid-out form, and it steeled her focus. She let go of her cell phone, and it clacked face-up against the floor just in time for the operator’s tin-can voice to echo over the line.

“911
, what’s your emergency?”

“I need
an ambulance at Mac’s Diner, twenty-five Fourth Street. Someone attacked my cook. He’s not moving, and he’s…” She swallowed back on the gag reflex kicking the back of her throat as she snatched the kitchen towel from Colin’s apron and pressed it over the center of the bloodstain. “I think he’s been stabbed.” Despite the waver in her voice, Serenity placed her free hand on Colin’s cheek.

Relief shot through her so hard he
r vision slipped. Warm. His face was warm under her palm.

“O
h! Oh, thank God. Okay, he’s unconscious, but—”

“Ma’am
? Has there been a break-in? Do you see anything else unusual?” The operator’s voice cut through Serenity’s concentration, stilling her over Colin’s body as she bent to check for a pulse. She’d used her keys to come in through the glass double doors in the front, just like she did every morning, and nothing had been out of the ordinary.

She did a quick scan of the kitchen— the dishwashing station, the narrow strip
of prep space that made up the line, the corridor leading past the walk-in to her office— but it looked as clean and undisturbed as it had when she’d left last night.

Except…

The coffeepot by the hot window was dark and empty, and Colin didn’t do
anything
in the morning without brewing that sucker to the brim.

“Not really. Maybe.
I don’t…” Her voice shorted out in her throat as she caught sight of the door leading from the kitchen to the alley behind the diner, the one Colin used to let himself in every morning.

It stood halfway open
, the stainless steel doorknob hanging from the housing at an unnatural angle that sent a sharp corkscrew of fear through her chest.

“The back door, le
ading to the alley. It’s broken.” She looked around again, head whipping over each shoulder.

The kitchen was perfectly still.
Undisturbed.

“Does the victim have a pulse?”

Serenity slipped her fingers into the crook under Colin’s jawline, fresh relief replacing the dread prickling up her backbone. “Yes.” His pulse beat in a thready rhythm against her fingertips, and she dragged her knees over the unforgiving tiles to return to his side, putting pressure on the wound. “But it’s not very strong.”

“Is he
breathing?”

Serenity crouched low, hovering her cheek so close to
Colin’s face that his stubble rasped her skin. “Yes, he’s breathing.”
Thank you, sweet Jesus
. Colin was the nicest guy on the planet. Who would do something like this to him?

The operator’s words grew stern over the line.
“EMS and police are on their way. I have to advise you to leave the premises until they arrive to secure the scene.”

She
blinked at the phone, still lying belly-up on the tiles next to her. “But I can’t do that. My friend needs help.” Something warm and sticky slid between her fingers, and oh God, Colin was bleeding through the kitchen towel. No way could she just leave him here, and anyway, other than the slamming of her heartbeat in her ears and the operator’s voice on the line, the kitchen was silent.

“Ma’am, please be a
dvised, you may be in danger. Exit the building and lock yourself in your vehicle until police and EMS arrive,” the operator insisted, and Serenity darted a quick glance at the open back door again. Whoever had done this had likely fled as soon as she’d come in through the front, maybe even before that.

She couldn’t just leave her friend.

“There’s no sign of anyone still here. If the police are on their way—”

The quickly-moving
thud of boots over tile reached her ears from behind, instantly killing the rest of her words. Fear canceled out the flood of adrenaline in Serenity’s veins, the cold pinpricks on the back of her neck turning to sub-arctic spikes as she tried to scramble to her feet. Whirling, she caught a brief flash of something shiny, the edge of a blood-streaked shirt, and a baseball cap pulled down low over the hard-set, malicious slant of a man’s jawline. He jerked his head up, his glittering stare piercing all the way through her chest as he narrowed it on her.

He swung a black backpac
k over his shoulder, the intricate tattoo on his forearm flexing over his muscles as he advanced in a rush. Serenity balled her bloodstained hands into fists in a last-ditch effort to protect herself, gathering her breath from low in her belly.

But
before she could unleash a scream, the man smashed into her with startling force. She sailed backward, clawing desperately for balance, catching nothing but thin air.

Then
a tooth-rattling pain reverberated from the back of her head like a shockwave, and darkness invaded, swallowing her whole.

#

Blinding light sliced through the inky black backdrop of Serenity’s line of vision, and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the intrusion.

But they
were already closed.

“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

Somewhere in the fuzzy haze of her mind, Serenity had the impulse to answer, but her mouth refused to comply. Tiny slivers of clipped conversation rolled over her mind, crashing like turbulent ocean waves before receding into dusky blips.

Need another backboard here…pulse is strong…I think she’s coming around…

Huh. She must’ve fallen asleep watching one of those medical dramas. But wait, she’d already gotten up to take the early shift at the diner. And why did her head feel so funny, like a playground ball with a slow leak?

Serenity dialed her memor
y forward, past the chill and shiver of the pre-sunrise April hour, past the sharp click of the deadbolt sliding free as she let herself into the diner, past the hard prickle on her spine that signaled something innately wrong…

Police are on their way…you may be in danger…

Oh, God. There was an intruder in the diner. She had to
move
.

“Uh!” Serenity forced her eyes wide, white halos shifting in rings around the iridescent shapes
as she tried to jolt forward. But a whipcord of pain rattled through her like utensils being slammed around in a kitchen drawer, and she fought the urge to throw up with all her waning might.

“Whoa! Take it easy, there.
My name is Scott, and I’m a paramedic with Brentsville Fire and Rescue. I’m here to help you.” A man dressed in a dark blue uniform flickered over her like a stop-time movie, his hands anchoring her into place, and hold on… why was she lying on the floor?

There had been a
stranger…but where was he now?

Serenity
willed her brain back to order, staring up at the paramedic even though it made her eyes feel like they’d been vacuum-packed and covered in push pins. “Man…there’s a man…my friend is hurt…” Colin had been bleeding, hadn’t he? Panic cranked through her ribcage, mixing with her jangled confusion, but the paramedic’s voice was oddly reassuring as he knelt down beside her.

“You’re
both safe now. The police are here, and I’m going to take care of you while they check everything out. Can you tell me your name?”

“S-Serenity.”
 

“Feeling any pain, Serenity?”
Someone outside her field of vision—behind her, maybe?— clasped a hand on either side of her face, and the move sent ruthless stabs of pain from the back of her skull all the way around to her temples.

“
Ow! My head.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott said, his tone genuine but firm. “We have to keep you
r neck stable as a precaution. Can you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?” His hands flurried over her in a blur of purposeful motion, and she blinked up at the ceiling, her head spinning like a rickety carnival ride.

Whoa
. “Six.” Her gag reflex made her a liar. “Or seven.”

The paramedic
slipped a blood pressure cuff over her arm with no wasted movement. “Do you know where you are?”

Serenity wrinkled her nose at the question.
“I’m on the floor,” she said, and she caught the guy’s smile from her peripheral vision. Her cheeks went hot as she added, “At Mac’s. I’m at the diner.”

He nodded.
“And what day of the week is it?”

“
Thursday. No, Friday,” she blurted. Of course it was Friday, their busiest morning of the week. God, she needed to get up.